there's always a story
by nikkifuego
Summary: A place for little things that are too short to stand on their own. Rating varies anywhere from K-M depending on the chapter, be warned!
1. Chapter 1

"The first snow of the season!"

Castle bounds dramatically into the park, arms flung wide and face turned up toward the sky. Beckett shrugs at the nannies curiously regarding them, flashes a _what can you do? _smile before he comes back to tug on her gloved hand, leading her towards the empty fountain in the center of the park. The fine layer of snow on the ground crunches under their feet as they walk, a dreamy sigh escaping him as he turns toward her.

"Isn't it gorgeous?"

Her lip twitches. "I told you, Castle. You see pretty, I see dangerous conditions and contaminated crime scenes. I'm just–"

"Humoring me on the way to lunch, right right." He kicks a pile of snow and lets go of her hand to lean down and scoop it up, forming a perfectly smooth ball between his palms.

"Castle, if you try to put that down my shirt, I swear to god..."

"I'm making a little snowman!" He protests indignantly, mashing the snowball onto the ledge of the fountain and leaning down to pick up another smaller pile. He glances at her as he shapes the snow in his hands, corners of his lips turning up as his eyes trail down her body. "But it would be such a shame if all your clothes got wet and we had to go back to your place and get you out of them…"

He sobers as his gaze reaches her face again, the glare enough to make him turn his eyes down to the ball in his hands.

"Right. Well, snowman is good too," he says hastily, placing the smaller sphere on top of the first and scooping up his last pile, making the head before snapping a twig from a nearby tree to give it arms. He squints, scrutinizing it for a moment before doing one last pat down and stepping back.

"You should make one too!" He turns towards her excitedly, his eyes appearing even bluer against the blur of the snow around them and she has to tamp down the urge to kiss him even as she regards him skeptically.

"It's _cold_."

"You're wearing _gloves_. You wouldn't want this little guy to be lonely, would you? Come on Beckett, have a heart."

She rolls her eyes but bends down to gather up some snow, assembles a smaller and slightly less shapely counterpart for Castle's snowman. Taking the twig he hands her, she bends down to draw faces on each of them, making two snowy smiles before snapping the stick in half and giving her creation arms. She straightens to find him grinning at her and shrugs, shoves her hands into her coat pockets.

"They're not lonely," she explains, biting her lip and smiling back at him for a moment before she tilts her head back, letting the falling snow land on her upturned face.

"What are you doing?" He laughs, and she sticks her tongue out at the sky.

"Trying to catch snowflakes." It comes out garbled, her tongue still sticking out of her mouth, and she hears him laugh again before his cold hands are on either side of her face and he's drawing her down and kissing her. The warm slant of his mouth over hers combined with the snow on her lips creates a tingling feeling and she hums, brings her hands out of her pockets to curl lightly around his sides.

He pulls back and she opens her eyes to find him grinning still, snowy lashes inches from hers.

"I think you caught a Castle instead," he says and she laughs, wraps her gloved hands around his bare ones to draw them down from her face before leaning in to press another brief kiss to his lips.

"And maybe I'll keep him." She tugs him towards the street. "Now let's get food, I'm starving."

"Will you make a quick snow angel with me before we leave?"

"Don't push it," she warns, but she's smiling when she looks back at him and she can feel the boyish expression on his face softening her just like the white blanket quietly softening the harsh edges of the city around them. "But there's always snowfall number two."


	2. Chapter 2

**a/n: **Takes place at the end of 5x08.

* * *

The exhaustion is heavy in his bones when they finally get back to the loft. He can feel it radiating off the detective at his side as they walk past the remnants of their dinner party left behind from a scene that feels like days ago, a disaster of such epic proportions that a crime scene felt like a welcome escape.

He throws off his coat when they reach the bedroom, flopping gracelessly backwards onto the bed and turning his head to watch her toe her boots off. Her hair is hanging around her face, fallen out of the updo he had watched her meticulously style in his bathroom earlier; the lipstick she had ordered him not to mess up as he backed her against the sink now faded from the night of hostages and mob bosses and worry.

She surprises him by settling down on the bed, the fabric of her slacks rustling as she pulls her legs up, stocking-clad toes curling into his thigh. He feels her heavy exhale across his chest as she tucks her head into his side and he snakes an arm around her, rubs at her back.

"We're good," he says without knowing which of them he's addressing, not sure which part of the evening he's offering reassurance about but he continues to massage her taut muscles, hand eventually coming to rest at the nape of her neck and tangling in her hair.

"I'm glad I have you."

She says it softly, almost a whisper, and he hears the apology for her earlier doubt behind the words yet it still manages to suck the air out of his lungs because no matter how much of herself she gives to him, shows him, he's still sometimes stuck somewhere in the past four years where she's something precious that he's hanging onto by a thread, a real life superhero who catches bad guys and tolerates the childish novelist writing her love letters the only way he knows how.

He's not quite caught up to the point where she needs him as much as he needs her, and his heart clenches in his chest to think about her going home to an empty apartment last year after a night like this. After the bank explosion, the sniper, the bombing. His hand tightens in her hair before he wraps his fingers gently around the back of her neck, draws her down to swipe his tongue out against her lips and she melts even farther into him, palm pressing flat against his chest as she sighs into his mouth.

"We've got just the right amount of yin and yang," he says when they separate, forehead resting against hers as she smiles softly and closes her eyes. _  
_

They're good.

She has him.


	3. Chapter 3

**a/n:** ANOTHER 5x08 sorta post-ep? It's ok because now the episode has actually aired, right? Sure.

* * *

The officer doesn't have twenty bucks, but Beckett is flashing her badge and telling the driver to take them to the Twelfth, yanking Castle into the backseat with her and settling back against the worn leather as the they start back in the direction of Manhattan.

His leg is pressed up against hers, the weight of his palm resting heavy and present on her thigh and she tries to relay the message of his nearness to her brain, the hammering rate of her heart but she hasn't caught her breath since Leo's first shot went into that car and it's not _enough_. The deep breath she attempts to take rattles into her lungs and she reaches out a hand to wrap around his own, feels the rapid beat of his pulse against her fingers, thumping in tune with her own heart's staccato rhythm against her ribcage.

The hand on her leg starts to inch higher, Castle's thumb circling a firm, insistent pattern and her breath hitches when his pinky brushes the crease of her thigh. She knows they both feel the moment when she should shrug him off, tell him to stop, hiss that she showed this driver her _badge_, Castle, but instead she tugs on the sleeve of his jacket, motioning for him to take it off and draping it over their hands on her lap. It's hardly a legitimate cover if the driver looks in the rearview mirror but the adrenaline pumping through her system is so fierce she can hardly think and it's slowly mixing with the heady cloud of lust filtering into her brain, clogging her system.

He coughs through the quick pull of her zipper and then his hand is wasting no time, immediately tugging aside the lace scrap of underwear that was supposed to be his reward for good dinner behavior in a universe that feels light-years away and she buries her face into his shoulder, letting his touch bring her down and build her up simultaneously.

Her breath is hot against the sleeve of his dress shirt, mouth open wide and teeth scraping against the fabric as she makes a feeble attempt to suppress a groan. Her nails are digging into the empty seat on the other side of her and she knows she's going to leave permanent crescent-shaped imprints in the leather but she's only capable of tightening her sharp grip when Castle's fingers hit right _there_ and her breathy exhale isn't muffled at all this time, head leaving the haven of his shoulder to loll back against the headrest.

She's so close, hips working against his hand under their makeshift cover as she teeters on the edge, eyes squeezed shut so tightly in concentration that Castle's proximity goes unnoticed until he's whispering comfort into her ear, coaxing her to let go and suddenly she's being pulled apart, bright lights of the city seeming to explode in front of her as a mix of gunshots and _no no never never _echo in her head.

The cool November air rushing in from the window ripples across her overheated skin as her breathing evens out and she slowly releases the clamp of her thighs, lets his touch soothe her sensitive skin. She feels so much lighter already and she wants to tell him that they should have been observing their victories over mortality like this for years but she swallows the thought, stays quiet as she turns her head to press a kiss to the side of his mouth instead.

They got it eventually, the both of them together; now, here, _this_.


	4. Chapter 4

**a/n:** Fill for the winter hiatus kink meme for the prompt: 'Hot, quick, and dirty in the backseat of her new police issued vehicle.'

* * *

"I can't believe we're stuck in _New Jersey_."

She glares at him across the console, phone to her ear, only able to narrow her eyes in response as she politely thanks the man at the auto repair shop on the other end of the line. Ending the call with a tap to the screen, she tosses her phone down into her lap before unbuckling her seatbelt, shoulders popping as she stretches her arms out.

"Not only did we have to drive all the way out here," he continues, chin in one hand as he stares out the window. "We get stuck on the most rural highway to probably exist in this industrial wasteland of a state. We couldn't break down outside of a Starbucks?"

She huffs, shimmying down into the seat, fingers twirling the iphone in her hand. "Guy said the tow truck was leaving right away, shouldn't take more than thirty minutes."

"Great. Wanna go cow tipping?"

"Get in the backseat."

"Or we cou- what?"

"We have thirty minutes," she says, shrugging out of her coat as she turns towards him in the passenger seat. "And I intend to use them. I haven't been over in a week because of this case."

He's gaping, watching her gather up her hair and toss it behind her head but she knows that he's been _missing_ her as much as she has him - the strained smile he had given her along with her coffee this morning, the way his eyes devoured her in the interrogation room later, the electricity she had practically felt radiating off of his body when they ended up pressed side by side in the crowded elevator. He recovers quickly, yanking his arms out of his jacket, hitting his head on the ceiling as he throws one leg into the backseat, stumbling the rest of the way. She jumps back after him, ducking, hands braced on each of their seats as she lands gracefully in his lap.

She leans forward to capture his mouth, leading with her tongue and his palms immediately engulf her waist, pads of his fingertips digging into bare skin as they sneak under her sweater. She presses her hips into his as her tongue trails the roof of his mouth, her moans echoing around the back of his throat when he rakes his nails down her thighs through the fabric of her slacks. She rocks into him, knees digging into the crease of the seat while her hands grip his shoulders, suddenly breaking apart to gulp in air when his hips press up just as forcefully.

"Get these off," he grunts, tugging uselessly on one of her belt loops as his other hand grips her ass. She tosses off her sweater first, batting his hands away to pop the button on her pants, kicking her heels to the floor before pushing them down awkwardly. His hands are back on her before she even regains her composure atop him, pushing through the cotton of her underwear as if it wasn't there, dragging his fingers against her and groaning.

"Jesus, Beckett," he pushes one finger into her and her whole body reacts, arms flying out to wind around his neck. "That didn't take you long."

"_Days_," she breathes hotly into his skin, touching her tongue to that one spot at the edge of his jaw and feels the responding groan roll through his chest. He adds another finger as she grinds into his lap, working herself off against his palm and it's only minutes before the edges of her orgasm are licking at her, the fire in her abdomen finally catching and roaring through her as she cries out and tightens her grip around his neck.

She hears the pull of his zipper through the fog in her brain and starts to slowly pull back just in time to let him see her eyes roll back into her head as he pushes into her without preamble.

"Fu-" her breath catches as she sinks farther down onto him, eyes screwed tightly shut. "-uck, _Castle_." He catches her with one hand at the small of her back as her body cants backwards, still groping around blindly for purchase as he thrusts up into her. One of his hands spans the circumference of her waist, thumb rubbing as her chest heaves above him, pressing his mouth to the skin between her breasts to collect the sweat pooling there. He presses a hot kiss to her scar, mouth too warm on her overheated skin but all she can do is shake her head, one hand fisting in the blue fabric of the shirt he's still wearing.

She finds her balance, hips rolling into his as she sets her own rhythm, hand pressing against the fogged-up window as she rides him. Her chant of _oh god oh god oh god_ grows louder and louder until she explodes around him, toes curling up as her second orgasm sears through her, his following not longer after as he pumps into her one last time with a groan of release.

She thinks she's hearing bells until she realizes it's her phone in the front seat, hurriedly twisting away from him to grab it.

"Five minutes?" Her voice comes out rough and she clears her throat. "Perfect."

(She studiously ignores Castle's shit-eating grin when the repairman can't stop staring at the perfect palm print on the backseat window as he attaches her car to the truck.)


	5. Chapter 5

**a/n:** For Heather, feel better boo!

* * *

The clunking noises he can hear from across the loft are somehow a pleasant counterpoint to the whistle of the tea kettle on his stove and Castle can't help the upturn of his lips as he grabs a mug from the cabinet, tries to suppress his smile before the irritated detective in his bedroom comes back out and reams him for it.

He knew her cold was inevitable, was all too aware that she had been spreading herself thin over the holidays between work and celebrating and sleep, but her determination to be involved_ everywhere _was a force he couldn't have brought himself to stop even if he'd wanted to. The joy that had squeezed his heart when he'd exited his study after a marathon writing session to find her baking cookies with his daughter at one in the morning overpowered the need to drag her to bed after her twelve-hour day at the precinct; the taste of champagne on her lips at midnight conquered the twinge of guilt about inviting her to a New Years party when her workday started promptly at six am the next morning.

He hadn't said a word when she began to sniffle at dinner the other night, had pretend to sleep through her cough that shook the entire bed, had even given her a kiss goodbye earlier that morning as he snuck cough drops and tissues into her bag. Despite both of their efforts to pretend she wasn't sick, however, she had come through the door twenty minutes ago fuming about how she could do her job just as well with a runny nose before storming into his bedroom and shutting the door behind her.

All that aside, he can't hide the inordinate pleasure over the fact that when Gates sent her home, she had come _here_.

He hears the drag of slippers against the hardwood floor and pauses in his tea preparation to glance over and find her completely stripped of work clothes, leggings and fuzzy socks peeking out from under the robe she has cinched around her waist.

"Why are you wearing my robe?" He turns his attention back to the hot water, dunking a teabag and watching the tendrils of color seep into the mug before reaching up to grab a bottle of honey from the cabinet above.

"It's comfier than mine," she volleys back as she drops onto the couch, mumbling as she reaches for the remote.

"Did you just say it smells like me?"

"No." She's staring straight ahead as she flicks through channels on the television and he grins at her unconvincing tone, deposits his stirring spoon into the sink with a _clink _before carefully making his way over to the couch.

She wrinkles her nose when he sits down, peering cautiously at the yellow liquid over the rim of the cup. "What is _that_?"

"Throat coat tea." He rolls his eyes when she refuses to take it, moves closer. "It's not as disgusting as it looks, and I promise it will make you feel better. Trick I picked up from having an ailing actress in the house."

She accepts it grudgingly but closes her eyes when the rising steam washes over her face, wraps both hands around the ceramic and holds it to her chest for a moment before taking a sip.

"Oh," her eyes open slowly, throat working as she swallows the warm liquid. "It's good."

He smiles knowingly and wedges himself between her body and the couch before she can swat at him, brings up a rerun of Temptation Lane with a few clicks of the abandoned remote and lets her settle back against his chest. Her legs curl around his own, toes kneading at his shins through the thick socks as she blows softly on the tea cradled in both hands.

"I usually just take as much cold medicine as I can and sleep for twenty-four hours before reporting for duty again," she says into the depths of the mug, cautiously taking another sip.

"Not while Nurse Castle is around."

"Nurse?" She laughs, twisting her neck to look back at him. "Not _Doctor_ Castle?"

"Doctor Castle wouldn't get to rub Vicks on your chest later," he leers, watching her eyes roll up towards the ceiling. "Or get to take your temperature. Or, wait," he backpedals, leaning away from her. "I take back that last part, it got weird."

She chuckles as she turns towards the television, flops back against his chest. "Substitute a warm bath for that and I'll call you anything you'd like."

"You may regret that when you're calling me Batman later."

She hums noncommittally, attention now focused on the drama unfolding before them on screen and one of his arms curls loosely around her waist, a matching contentedness curling in his chest.

She came here.


	6. Chapter 6

_The tiny hand forms a fist around Rook's finger, bright blue eyes still trained on her mother's face._

"_Heat strength," he grimaces, earning a laugh from Nikki._

"_Wimp." _

_He looks up and she's grinning at him, the happiest he's seen her weeks, every inch as beautiful as she is exhausted. Stray pieces of hair are falling out of her ponytail and framing her face and his writer's mind hastens to capture the moment, drinking in every detail as she looks down at the bundle in her arms again._

"_Am I right? Two against one, your daddy doesn't stand a chance." She transfers the weight to one arm so that she can bring the other hand up to stroke a finger down the baby's nose, making her eyelids flutter and close as she nestles into Nikki's warmth and loosens her grip on Rook._

"_I love you," he whispers and Nikki looks up, her free hand reaching across the bed and curling into his to take the place of his daughter's. She doesn't respond but her eyes never leave Rook's, words unnecessary as she softly rocks their baby against her chest._

"Beckett?"

She freezes with her hand over the trackpad of the laptop, heart pounding wildly as she stares blankly at Castle standing in the doorway of his study.

"Did you find the recipe?" He looks suspicious even as amusement curls the corners of his lips, throwing the dish towel in his hands over one shoulder as he starts stalking towards the desk. "You look like Alexis when I used to catch her up reading at two in the morning, what are you..."

He pauses when he sees the document up on the screen, body still behind her as he steadies himself with a palm on the desktop.

"I didn't mean to snoop," she says meekly, one hand clutching the edge of the desk as the other minimizes the story away from view. "I just moved a window and it was there, and when I saw Nikki-"

"Beckett, no. I mean, it's not..." He sighs, prying each of her fingers from their grip on the wood, the diamond band flashing a light show around the dark study as he spins the chair around. "Nikki is yours, I would never try to keep any of her story from you."

"So this is...?" She's still sitting, looking up at him now as he stands with his hands on his hips. "This is part of Nikki's story?"

"Well, no. Maybe in the future," he hesitates for just a moment. "When she's ready."

She sees his internal wince, but his mouth opens again before she can speak.

"I know we haven't talked about anything beyond marriage, and if marrying you means nothing but spending the rest of our lives together and continuing to watch Alexis grow older and wiser than me, believe me I am more than fine with that. But," he pauses, taking a deep breath, "watching you make all these plans for the wedding has led to me think about other plans we might make, and whenever I see families on the street I can't stop picturing you holding the hand of a little girl with curly brown hair or a serious little boy in a Batman hat. Even so," he barrels on, "this doesn't even necessarily have to be part of Nikki's story. It was from Rook's point of view, I just had to-"

She jumps up and puts a finger to his lips, heart beating rapidly for an entirely different reason now as images pop into her head unbidden; a blue-eyed baby in one of those silly tourist shop NYPD onesies, a little boy asking for _mommy_, a girl twirling around the loft in a purple dress. The silence is palpable as her gaze slides from its resting point over his shoulder back to his face, and she can see longing written into every feature.

"I want it," she blurts out, half-surprising herself, blushing as she shakes her head. "Later."

"Later." His grin builds slowly as he grabs her by the wrist, removing her hand from his mouth and tugging her closer. "Just to be clear, Detective Beckett, by _it_ you do mean _Richard Castle's babies_?"

"Richard Castle's?" She feigns surprise. "I thought this was an offer from Jameson Rook. He's got that romance novel experience, and with his connections I bet he could-"

The press of his lips cuts her off, teeth clashing in a messy kiss as he smiles against her mouth. She lets herself melt into the moment, lets the gratitude she can feel flowing from him pull her under because she knows that when later comes they're going to have to discuss her job, their partnership, the possibility of shaking everything that they've built as _Castle and Beckett_. She won't tell him now that she's been thinking about this for awhile, about wanting to leave a part of herself with him if something were to ever happen because she knows that he'd never abandon Alexis, but she wants him to have something to truly _live_ for if she were gone.

"Good talk," he says quietly when they separate.

"Hmm," she consents, banishing the morbid thoughts from her mind for now. "And you know what the best part of 'later' is going to be?"

"The soon-to-be delicious chicken you've taken fifteen minutes to print the recipe for?"

She laughs, pulling back to look him in the eye as she bites her lip. "Plenty of time to practice."


End file.
